March 30, 2007 - CHAPEL HILL — Fewer big sharks in the oceans led to the destruction of North Carolina’s bay scallop fishery and inhibits the recovery of depressed scallop, oyster and clam populations along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, according to an article in the March 30 issue of the journal Science.

A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has found that overfishing in the Atlantic of the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky and hammerhead sharks, has led to an explosion of their ray, skate and small shark prey species.

“With fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon – like cownose rays – have increased in numbers, and in turn, hordes of cownose rays dining on bay scallops have wiped the scallops out,” said co-author Julia Baum of Dalhousie.

Someone will see the scallops dying, won't cross-check their facts, blame it on warming and the media will eat it up.

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